On Tuesday morning, MSNBC’s Morning Joe bashed Attorney General Pam Bondi for saying “There’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech,” on an episode of The Katie Miller Podcast posted on Monday. While the program granted the legality of hate speech, that can’t be squared with its disdain for digital free speech.
New York Times columnist David French came on the air to explain, “This is not an ambiguous area of constitutional law. There is no sort of carve out from the First Amendment for so-called hate speech.” Therefore, no one can be taken to court for something someone simply didn’t like being said. The emotional intensity of speech is protected no matter where or when it is said.
Co-host Joe Scarborough pointed out, “But can you imagine how stifled political debate would be in this country if years ago attorney generals decided they were going—according to that podcast—they’re going to put handcuffs on people whose speech they decided was hateful?” Yes, that would be a nightmare. Tyrannical, even.
Scarborough decided to pass blame to tech companies and politicians for allowing digital environments, where politically-divisive activity occurs, to persist:
You know, free speech is free speech. But the fact that we continue to give these monopolies in Silicon Valley a complete free pass because of Section 230, and allow them to pollute our children’s minds, allow them to do whatever they want to do and say, “Oh, you can never be sued because you’re a monopoly, and we Washington politicians are scared of you.” How long are we going to allow that to happen?
Morning Joe has a history of complaining about Big Tech’s protection from lawsuits under Section 230, bemoaning the spread of hate speech across social media. And there is a legitimate discussion to be had about children being exposed to certain content on the internet. The UK did something about it with their Online Safety Act.
That doesn’t line up with how freedom of speech was so strongly defended on Tuesday’s program. What is said on the internet deserves just as much protection as what is said in real life. The shield that online anonymity provides obviously does conjure up more toxicity or “hatred” than one would find in most face-to-face interactions. The morality of such is a completely different question from whether it should be legal.
Scarborough admitted that undesirable discourse does, in fact, exist: “There’s going to be speech that we find despicable and hateful. And Charlie Kirk says that’s part of the First Amendment, that’s part of this big debate that we’re all having here in America.”
Bondi’s statement was regrettable. Speech should be protected regardless of messaging or emotional impact on its audience and Bondi took to X to specify, “Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment.” Looks like that supposed nightmare was just a dream after all.
Scarborough should get credit for not completely knocking the constitutional freedom of speech. But he needs to align that with his beliefs on digital speech if he wishes to attain some level of credibility.
The transcript is below. Click “expand” to read:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
September 15, 2025
6:26:16 Eastern(…)
DAVID FRENCH: Look. It’s absolutely clear. This is not an ambiguous area of constitutional law. There is no sort of carve out from the First Amendment for so-called hate speech. And the reason for that is pretty obvious. We don’t want to delegate to the government the responsibility or the authority to declare what—how far is too far in political debate. Because guess what? The government’s always going to be biased in that endeavor. The government’s always going to be shutting down speech that’s critical of powerful people.
(…)
6:27:15
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Sadly, a lot of times the best people don’t run for president because you know you’re going to be targeted by hate speech. You know that’s going to be part of your day every single day. But can you imagine how stifled political debate would be in this country if years ago attorney generals decided they were going—according to that podcast—they’re going to put handcuffs on people whose speech they decided was hateful?
(…)
6:29:00
SCARBOROUGH: You know, free speech is free speech. But the fact that we continue to give these monopolies in Silicon Valley a complete free pass because of Section 230, and allow them to pollute our children’s minds, allow them to do whatever they want to do and say, “Oh, you can never be sued because you’re a monopoly, and we Washington politicians are scared of you.” How long are we going to allow that to happen?
(…)
7:13:40
SCARBOROUGH: And yet you see Pam Bondi yesterday talking on a podcast, doing the exact opposite of what Charlie Kirk said we should all do, and that is that we’re going to decide what speech we’re going to stifle and what speech we’re not. Going to put handcuffs, the podcast—isn’t time we start, stop explaining and just start handcuffing people. Or said something along those lines. Handcuffing people because of their speech. We got a clip. We can show of Charlie Kirk saying no, no, no, no, no, you don’t do that there. There’s going to be speech that we find despicable and hateful. And Charlie Kirk says that’s part of the First Amendment, that’s part of this big debate that we’re all having here in America.
(…)
